Ok, but you recognize that the government trying to take away a right is wrong. But if the government was founded on the premise that it could just give and take rights as needed, then not too many people would probably question such things as the patriot act. All I'm saying.....

"i had learn to focus i what i could do rather what i couldn't do", Rick Hansen when asked about getting a disabling spinal cord injury at 15. He continues to raise money for spinal cord research and inspire peoople to "make a difference". He doesnt preach any religion.

Truthfinder:the birds adapt and change through million of years in order to survive ,is that science, then cats should evolve also wings to better catch the birdsMailbag:On a side note, back in college before my conversion, I actually saw a demon sitting next to me in critical thinking class.

Ok, but you recognize that the government trying to take away a right is wrong.

Depends. I don't think that the government taking freedoms from convicted murderers is wrong.

All the government needs in order to justify removing a right is to cite another priority that people hold more strongly. Like protecting the rest of the public from the murderer. Or protecting the public from terrorists.

But if the government was founded on the premise that it could just give and take rights as needed, then not too many people would probably question such things as the patriot act. All I'm saying.....

Sure they would, because they want those rights. If they care about the rights in question, then it doesn't matter if they are "natural" or not: People will fight for them. Vice versa if people don't care about them.

Ok, but you recognize that the government trying to take away a right is wrong. But if the government was founded on the premise that it could just give and take rights as needed, then not too many people would probably question such things as the patriot act. All I'm saying.....

It is amazing you are backing down from your previous position and simultaneously making an otherwise empty post.

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Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding. - Martin Luther

BTW, I'm not saying sinking Columbus' ships would have been a good idea. Probably would have just delayed the inevitable. But it wasn't the US at that point anyways, so I didn't see the comment as talking down America.

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Truthfinder:the birds adapt and change through million of years in order to survive ,is that science, then cats should evolve also wings to better catch the birdsMailbag:On a side note, back in college before my conversion, I actually saw a demon sitting next to me in critical thinking class.

BTW, I'm not saying sinking Columbus' ships would have been a good idea. Probably would have just delayed the inevitable. But it wasn't the US at that point anyways, so I didn't see the comment as talking down America.

The comment wasn't directly about America. I suspect it would only have delayed things by at most a century given the drive to find a more direct route to China. It's more a matter that of all the massacres of recent centuries which one might have the best chance (a bottleneck) where things could be changed.

Many people talk of killing Hitler (if they were sent back in time) but even if you did it before 1930 at the latest, that might not have prevented anything. He wasn't the only anti-semite - heck, plenty of people in America of the time (and unfortunately now too) were also very anti-semitic. And the war provided a devistated Germany with a goal to build itself up. (America wasn't the only country facing economic problems.)

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Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding. - Martin Luther

An Omnipowerful God needed to sacrifice himself to himself (but only for a long weekend) in order to avert his own wrath against his own creations who he made in a manner knowing that they weren't going to live up to his standards.

Do animals such as a giraffe or pelican have natural, or god-given rights? Let's remove god-given from those animals, since we are fairly sure they do not worship any gods. So we're left with natural rights. Do animals that are not human, have any natural rights at all? If so, what are they, and why, and where did they come from?

Here's my point, and possibly an explanation of where at least some atheists might come from. Atheists do not believe that humans are any more special than any other animal. That is usually a distinction reserved to believers, who think that their god created us, separate and distinct from the other animals. That is simply false.

And because humans have the highest level of human-defined intelligence, we decided to grant ourselves "rights", regardless of whether we describe them as god-given, or natural. We "think" we have rights, because we thought of them. And there may be a naturally good reason to have "rights", but there simply is no guarantee, what with serial killers, rapists, wars, genocides, and lots of other lovely forms of intrusion upon the "rights" of an individual.

But this is why we organize, and make governments, and laws. We need them. We would have a harder time staying alive, and surviving, if we just let anarchy reign. And notice too that over time, we can clearly see the pros and cons of different forms of government. We can also see the tyranny of forcing ideologies upon people without their consent. This happens in religious laws, as well as secular.

Atheists do not believe that humans are any more special than any other animal.

How do you define "special".

Most people, atheist or not, will value human life over the lives of members of other species. I suppose we are biased but biased most of us are.

Humans most definitely are the only species that has recorded knowledge, that creates technologies,that has art and a number of things.

I assume of course you mean that biologically speaking we are not special in the sense of having some supernatural nature or what not.

I wonder about the Neadrathrals.

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"i had learn to focus i what i could do rather what i couldn't do", Rick Hansen when asked about getting a disabling spinal cord injury at 15. He continues to raise money for spinal cord research and inspire peoople to "make a difference". He doesnt preach any religion.

The Shanidar caves in Iran were occupied by Neanderthals. Cave dwelling is not all what it is cracked up to be. The roofs of caves crack and boulders weighing tons can fall.

A 16 year old Neanderthal boy was found buried. His skull had been crushed. Murder? One should had been crushed as a child handicapping him. Maybe both were falling ceiling rocks. He could not do a man's work of hunting and killing. His teeth had the wear of Eskimo women from chewing the edges of hides to ready them to be sewed into seams of leather clothes. He was an insignificant male given women's work.

A scientist took to study the soil he was buried in for pollen. This can tell what kind plants lived in the area and the climate, both in general and the season of the burials. It didn't just have traces of pollen it was packed with pollen. The pollen of flowers. As low a status as he had in the macho world of Neanderthals they had loved him and had buried him with flowers.

In 1908 a French paleontologist studied a Neanderthal skeleton and saw what he intended to see. The skeleton was stooped. Obviously the Neanderthals were apelike and were sort of knuckle draggers. He illustrated the Neanderthal with full body hair like an ape and a vicious snarl on his face. He missed the signs of senile bone disease. Also, the old man had no teeth left. The Neanderthals were exclusively meat eaters so someone must have chewed his food for him[1]. He was the old wise man of the tribe.

In other words he was on Social Security. The Neanderthals were a bunch of $&#**^% liberals! That must be why they went extinct.

If I really wanted to mess with columbus I'd spend a few years teaching the natives how to smelt steel, build firearms, and possibly introduce them to heavier-than-air flight. Wouldn't have to sink those ships, just let the natives bomb them from the air.

If I really wanted to mess with columbus I'd spend a few years teaching the natives how to smelt steel, build firearms, and possibly introduce them to heavier-than-air flight. Wouldn't have to sink those ships, just let the natives bomb them from the air.

LOL

But from what I know they'd be horrified at what they'd have to do to get the iron: massive mining with the debris poisoning the land and water. If I had some time with them, I'd do my best to explain that the Europeans would not understand them and ignore their needs/desires/rights. And maybe teach them what little I know of toxins and guerilla tactics.

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Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding. - Martin Luther

If I really wanted to mess with columbus I'd spend a few years teaching the natives how to smelt steel, build firearms, and possibly introduce them to heavier-than-air flight. Wouldn't have to sink those ships, just let the natives bomb them from the air.

small pox vaccinations would have saved millions

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There's no right there's no wrong,there's just popular opinion (Brad Pitt as Jeffery Goines in 12 monkeys)

jaywell, I gave out too much karma today. However, I'd like you to know the footnotes in your posts were awesome

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"i had learn to focus i what i could do rather what i couldn't do", Rick Hansen when asked about getting a disabling spinal cord injury at 15. He continues to raise money for spinal cord research and inspire peoople to "make a difference". He doesnt preach any religion.

Alright then. What gives life, in general, the right to stand up for itself?

I would suggest that the living thing gives itself that right, if it chooses to. And it can give up that right if it chooses to. And we can give non-living things the same right, if we so choose, though it won't mean much.

Oh, and what would a life-form that didn't have the right to resist tyranny look like, biologically? Could you tell the difference?

Alright then. What gives life, in general, the right to stand up for itself?

I don't know what gives life the right to stand up for itself. The only thing I can think of at the moment is something called "survival instinct". In other words, the right to self propagate. But that does not infer that an outside agent assigned life that right.

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I would suggest that the living thing gives itself that right, if it chooses to.

I would agree to a point. The "survival instinct" seems to be more or less encoded into living organisms DNA, so it's not much of a choice.

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And it can give up that right if it chooses to.

Depends on the organism. I can't imagine that a virus or a bacteria or a plant has any choice whatsoever as to what sort of action it will take.

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And we can give non-living things the same right, if we so choose, though it won't mean much.

On the same note, it wouldn't mean much if we refused to grant the rights of limestone to exist.

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Oh, and what would a life-form that didn't have the right to resist tyranny look like, biologically? Could you tell the difference?

All life forms have the right to resist tyranny. They may or may not have the power to assert their rights but they still have the right none the less. Viruses, regardless of our attempts to assassinate them; resist, adapt, mutate and evolve.

However, if you are asking about what a biological life form without the WILL to resist might look like, I go with sheep. Or cows, they're stupid.

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Spelling errors and such

« Last Edit: December 31, 2011, 02:02:18 AM by jaybwell32 »

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I just do what I always do, what I have always done. I am me. Take it or leave it.